Man arrested after pursuitThe Pope County Sheriff’s Department reported that a Pope County deputy conducted a welfare check at approximately 4:36 a.m. Monday on a parked vehicle on the shoulder of State Highway 27, north of Hector. The deputy observed a driver and what was believed to be a gun in the passenger seat. Before the deputy was able to make contact with the driver, the driver sped away in the vehicle and a pursuit ensued into Van Buren County where the deputy...

Bond hearingsThe following individuals appeared during felony bond hearings conducted by District Judge Don Bourne on Friday at the Pope County Detention Center. Their names, ages, anticipated charges and bond amounts are listed. If charged, they will appear March 14 in Pope County Circuit Court. • Clifford Champion, 62, theft by receiving — $10,000. On Dec. 30, 2015, the Pope County Sheriff's Office (PCSO) received a report from a man who allegedly said s...

Wards enter not guilty pleaDANVILLE — Sidney and Donna Ward, who allegedly stole $680,175 from the private nonprofit Yell County EMS at which they were employed, entered a not guilty plea to Circuit Court Judge Jerry Don Ramey at the Yell County Courthouse on Thursday. Ramey set the couple's pretrial date for 9 a.m. on April 7 and their jury trial date for 9 a.m. on April 21. Sidney, 69, will be represented by attorney W.H. Taylor of Fayetteville, while John Everett, al...

Woman on trial in square dancer’s deathTEXARKANA — Testimony has begun for a woman accused of fatally shooting a fellow square dancer in Texarkana. The Texarkana Gazette reports that 67-year-old Virginia Ann Hyatt is charged with capital murder in the December 2013 shooting death of 59-year-old Patti Wheelington. Crime Scene Investigator Marc Sillivan said during testimony that it appeared as if Wheelington was shot as she sat in a chair on her front porch and that four more bullet...

The failure of multiculturalismJust as radar warns of approaching storms, so does the flood of migrants entering Europe warn us of a deluge yet to come, not only for Europeans, if they continue to allow unrestricted immigration, but for the United States. Reports that women in Cologne, Germany, have been groped and robbed by men described by authorities as having “a North African or Arabic” appearance should be warning enough, but there are other and more ominous warnings t...

893 pounds of marijuana seized on I-40All it took was one traffic stop to surpass an entire year of marijuana seizures on the portion of Interstate 40 that crosses Pope and Johnson County. Bond was set Monday at $100,000 for a California man who was arrested after he was found in possession of 893 pounds of marijuana Friday. A story in Sunday’s edition of The Courier indicated that marijuana seized by the Arkansas State Police (ASP) Troop J during I-40 traffic stops for 2015 total...

Benton County sheriff charged with tampering with a record BENTONVILLE — Benton County Sheriff Kelley Cradduck has been formally charged with felony tampering with a public record and misdemeanor tampering. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (http://bit.ly/1P2xlDy ) reports that Cradduck was charged Monday. Cradduck was arrested Jan. 19. He is accused of ordering his staff to backdate the hiring date of a jail employee to pay him for time when he wasn't an employee and of instructing his secretary to lie t...

2 teens held without bond in slaying of Little Rock mother LITTLE ROCK — A judge ordered two teenagers held without bond Monday in the death of a Little Rock mother who was holding her toddler when she was robbed and shot while in her driveway this weekend. The two face preliminary charges as adults on suspicion of capital murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated assault and theft of property in the shooting death of 27-year-old Eunice Lopez. She was one of three people who died in unrelated shootings i...

Deer-beating video being investigatedLITTLE ROCK — Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officers say they’re investigating a video being circulated on Facebook that purportedly shows a deer being beaten with a textbook. Officers said Friday they believe the video was made in Arkansas by three Georgia residents and one Arkansas resident. Agents say they’ve questioned one of the individuals and plan to get statements from the other three within the next two days. The investigation beg...

Over $3M in drugs seized on I-40Interstate 40 is well known to be one of two corridors that men and women use to move illegal narcotics through the state of Arkansas. All it takes for an Arkansas State Police (ASP) trooper — or Highway Police Officer, Drug Task Force agent, sheriff’s deputy or local police officer — is to notice a driver following another vehicle too close, changing lanes quickly, not using a turn signal, defective equipment or something else to conduct a tr...

3 teens charged as adults in death of Lamar gradFORT SMITH — Three teenagers have been charged as adults in the shooting death of a Lamar native University of Arkansas at Fort Smith student last week. One boy, age 15, and two 16-year-old boys are charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and two counts of aggravated robbery in the Saturday shooting death of Kaleb Watson, 22. Court documents stated the three admitted to making plans to rob Watson, who was a neighbor of one of the suspects...

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESSThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Officer accused of stealing pills from inmateA former corrections officer who handed out medicine to inmates at the Pope County Detention Center allegedly admitted to stealing six Oxycodone pills intended for an inmate's treatment, according to a report. James Henry, 28, appeared in Pope County District Court for an Aug. 19 offense of drug paraphernalia fraud. Henry allegedly handed out evening and morning medications to the inmates during the period of time when an inmate's prescription...

Bond hearingsThe following individuals appeared during felony bond hearings conducted by District Judge Don Bourne on Friday at the Pope County Detention Center. Their names, ages, anticipated charges and bond amounts are listed. If charged, they will appear March 7 in Pope County Circuit Court. • Stephanie Mejia, 32, criminal mischief — $5,000. According to a detective with the Russellville Police Department (RPD), Pope County 911 received a call about a ...

Department begins using drug drop boxIn a step to reduce the availability of prescription drugs to those other than whom they're prescribed, the Clarksville Police Department (CPD) has set up a prescription drug drop box for people to dispose of their drugs. “We had a lot of people coming in wanting to get rid of old prescription pills, and they didn't know what to do,” said Larry Boggs, CPD public information officer. “The Johnson County Sheriff's Office has a drop box and has b...

Metropolitan EMS to buy body armor for Little Rock medics LITTLE ROCK — Four days after the fatal shooting of a central Arkansas firefighter, the Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services has made plans to buy ballistic vests for its medics. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/1PDGdTD ) that the proposal received strong support at the Little Rock Ambulance Authority meeting Tuesday. At the meeting, the agency's director of operations showed a lightweight ballistic vest made of Kevlar f...

Fort Smith police search for 2 juveniles in fatal shooting FORT SMITH — Authorities are searching for two teenage brothers in the off-campus shooting death of a University of Arkansas at Fort Smith student. Police say 22-year-old Kaleb Watson was shot Saturday during a suspected robbery at a home in Fort Smith. He later died at a hospital. On Tuesday, police said they were searching for two brothers in connection with the home invasion and shooting death. Fort Smith police say the 16-year-old and 15-y...

Warrior Nation mourns loss of Kaleb WatsonLAMAR — When two unidentified men shot and killed Lamar graduate and University of Arkansas-Fort Smith student Kaleb Watson, they couldn’t have known their actions would send a ripple of grief across Warrior Nation. “There’s no way to convey it,” David Meador, a guidance counselor at Lamar High School, said. “Those guys [the suspects], whatever they were after — who knows? They don’t realize what they took in the process. He’s the kind of kid ...

Supreme Court ruling could affect 50 Arkansas inmates LITTLE ROCK — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued Monday will allow more than 50 Arkansas inmates serving life sentences without parole for murders they committed as juveniles a chance to one day be free, but how that will happen is still in question. The court issued its ruling on a case involving Henry Montgomery, imprisoned for more than half a century for the fatal shooting of a Louisiana sheriff's deputy in 1963 when he was 17. The Supreme...

Girl, 17, fatally shot at Little River County birthday party ASHDOWN, Ark. — An Arkansas prosecutor says a 17-year-old girl has died after she was shot at a birthday party in Little River County. Ninth Judicial District Prosecutor Bryan Chesshir says Caitlin Caskey was shot once in the upper body around 9:30 p.m. Saturday when a 41-year-old woman waived and fired an AR-15 rifle in a roomful of kids at a home in Wallace, near Ashdown. The Texarkana Gazette (http://bit.ly/20qBR3L ) reports that Caskey was...

Wards arrested, released on bondSidney Lee Ward, 69, and Donna Ward 41, both of Belleville, surrendered to Sheriff’s investigators on Monday. Yell County Sheriff Bill Gilkey announced Monday the arrest of the two individuals stemming from an investigation conducted by the Arkansas Legislative Audit at the request of Prosecuting Attorney Tom Tatum II of Danville. Chief Deputy John Foster said that the investigation began in August 2015, after questions arose about financial a...